The Choice
by HeartofaTiger
Summary: One-Shot. What happened in between the hospital wing and Dumbledore's funeral that led to Tonks and Lupin finally getting together? Here's what I thought happened...


" _Set the sails, I fell the winds a' stirring towards the bright horizon set the way; cast your reckless dreams upon our Mayflower, haven from the world and her decay." – "Charlie Darwin" by The Low Anthem_

"Tonks!"

Remus ran down the moving staircase in an attempt to catch up with the young witch.

"Tonks! Please!"

He knew she could hear him calling her, but she still refused to turn around or even acknowledge him in the slightest. To think, this is what he had wanted for the past year. For her to run away from him, refusing to look back. The irony was not lost on him in the least.

"Dora!"

She slowed slightly, but still didn't stop. They were nearing the front doors to the castle, and Remus knew he only had a few moments before she would be gone.

"Nymphadora!"

She froze, nearly falling over with her hasty stop before catching herself on the doors. She turned on him, her eyes blazing. "Don't. Ever. Call me that. Again."

"I had to do something, you wouldn't stop and listen to me."

"I can't, Remus. I've heard what you have to say, and I can't listen to it anymore." Her voice sounded defeated, and she refused to look him in the eyes. "I thought… I thought if I showed you that it didn't matter to me…the age difference, the money, the lycanthropy, all of it… if I could just show you that none of it mattered, things would be different. But I've told you. I've told you so many times and you won't listen to me."

Remus knew he had to choice to make. He could do the right thing and let her go, or he could be selfish. She was finally ready to give up on him. He just wasn't sure that he could give her up. His choice had been made from the moment he'd met her. But she could still make hers.

"I need you to come with me," he told her.

"Why?" She asked, her eyes locked on the floor.

"I want to show you something." She seemed ready to argue with him, but he interrupted her before she could even begin.

"Please, you need to see this."

He made a move toward the door, and she quickly stepped aside to let him pass. "Just follow me," he instructed.

He led her out onto the grounds of Hogwarts, now empty and deserted. One wouldn't know by looking at it all that had passed just hours before. Remus felt that he had lived a lifetime since then.

They made their way silently across the grounds, until he stopped twenty yards away from his destination.

"The Whomping Willow?" Tonks asked him skeptically.

"Do you know why this is here?" he asked her, ignoring her doubtful expression.

"Dumbledore was a barmy old codger with a twisted sense of humor?" Tonks guessed.

Remus had to fight the urge to grin at her, rather truthful, observation, and shook his head.

"This was planted in 1971 just before I started here at Hogwarts." She looked at him, surprised. "It wasn't a coincidence," he explained. "Do you see that knot in the tree, down near the base?" Tonks nodded. "I want you to use that branch there and push it."

"Why do I get the feeling you're trying to off me?" She asked him, only mostly joking.

"Believe me, that's the last thing I want to do. Just trust me, all right?"

Tonks nodded, and did as he said. The tree began to swing wildly when the branch came close to it, but as soon as she managed to hit the spot, it stilled.

"What in the-?" Tonks started.

"Come on," Remus placed his hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the tree. She was tempted to argue, but his hand on her back made her hold her tongue. If she had to die, she wouldn't mind dying while feeling the tingling sensation his touch gave her. He brought her to the base of the tree, where she noticed a hole large enough for a person for the first time.

"Has this always been here?" She asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer. He nodded, proving her assumption correct. "I've never noticed it before."

"No one ever does." He smiled wryly at her before continuing. "Now when you go down, be careful. There's quite a drop."

She shot him a look as he tried to help her down toward the secret passage. "You needn't baby me, Remus. I'm a big girl, I can handle it."

She immediately regretted her words once she slid down the hole and landed flat on her behind with a loud "oomph!"

"Watch out, I'm about to come down." Remus called from above.

She quickly skittered out of the way to allow him to join her underground.

"What is this?" she asked him, lighting the tip of her wand so that she could glance around the tunnel.

"I thought you'd have figured it out by now," Remus told her, half teasingly.

"Well it's clearly a secret passageway. The question is where does it go…" Tonks looked at Remus as a realization dawned on her. "This- the tree and all of this- it was for you, wasn't it?"

Remus nodded at her solemnly, all teasing gone from his face. "When I was bitten," he began and then stopped. "When I became like this, I was five years old. My parents gave up any hope of me ever getting a proper magical education. Then one day, when I was not quite eleven yet, Dumbledore appears at the door. He tells my parents that he has an idea that would allow me to come to Hogwarts and be educated like any other student. My parents were skeptical at first, but they couldn't find it in themselves to withhold from me my only chance at a – comparatively- normal life."

He had begun making his way down the passageway, crouched down so he didn't bump his head on the low ceiling. Tonks followed him, crouching down as well, and watching the ground for any roots she might trip on.

"So Dumbledore had the Whomping Willow planted to guard the passageway to a safe place where I could transform once a month. No one would ever need to know. I would simply come down here, accompanied by Madame Pomfrey of course, and I would be locked in a house where I wouldn't be a harm to anyone else."

They had reached the end of the passageway, and Tonks spotted a trapdoor above their heads. Remus lifted it before turning to help her climb up and into a shabby old bedroom full of broken furniture. Scratches covered every inch of the floor and walls, and there were old fading brown splotches in a few places as well.

"Where… This isn't…Is it?"

"The Shrieking Shack, yes." Remus answered her. "I could be locked in here while I transformed, and none of the students could access it because of the Whomping Willow, and none of the villagers would dare to come in because they thought it was-"

"Haunted." Tonks finished for him. "But it wasn't haunted, it was just you…"

"It was a wonderful plan while I was young. As I became older, though, it became more… difficult to be cooped up in here during a transformation."

Tonks judged by damage to the room that this was the understatement of the century. If this was the state of the furniture, she could only imagine what his body looked like…

"Which is where my friends come in… They realized during our second year what I was. I had dreaded the moment they would find out, and I knew they would eventually. They were too nosey not to." He smiled fondly at this thought. "But, for some reason, they didn't desert me like I thought they would. In fact, they treated me the same as they always had. I think they thought it was cool…" He seemed lost in thought, and Tonks took this time to digest what she had heard.

She was suddenly angry, furious even, that this man who seemed to be so grateful to his friends for not treating him as any less than a person for something he couldn't control, would not allow her to do the same for him. She was about to point out this hypocrisy when he suddenly continued.

"Then the transformations became more difficult. I would come back with more scratches and scars, and suddenly it wasn't the fun joke it had been. I thought for sure that that would be it, and they would give up on me. But then they had an idea…

"You know, of course, that Sirius was an animagus." Tonks nodded. "Did you know that werewolf bites only affect humans?" Tonks nodded her head again, wondering where he was going with this. "And it turns out that a human in the form of an animagus is also immune to a werewolf's bite…"

Tonks gasped, finally realizing what he was implying.

"They were only fifteen years old… Sirius became a dog, James became a stag, and Peter became a rat." Remus paused thoughtfully. "Rather telling, that." Remus shook the thought away before continuing. "They began to spend transformations with me. I was too dangerous in close quarters like this, but out in the Forbidden Forest, there was plenty of room for us to roam. My transformations became less daunting to me, more like our normal excursions. Only this time we could explore the entire forest rather than just the castle.

"I was afraid, of course, that I would hurt one them. Quite frequently I did, but they never held it against me. I hated myself for it, but somehow they never did. Even Lily, when she found out, never looked at me differently…"

"I don't understand, Remus…" Tonks began. "This entire story, all of it, just proves my point. James and Sirius and Dumbledore did all of it because they cared for you. They could see past what you become once a month, so why won't you let me?"

"Because every one of them has something in common, now, Dora. They're all dead. All of them but Peter, and frankly he would be better off dead for what he became." Remus began to pace in frustration, pulling on his hair as he went. "I've had to watch everyone I've ever loved die."

"That isn't your fault, though! You had nothing to do with their deaths."

"Yes, you're right! I did nothing! I could have saved them, and I didn't!"

"Remus, you can't keep blaming yourself! Is this why you keep pushing me away? Because you don't think you deserve to be happy? Because you're wrong!"

"That's not the only reason…" Remus no longer sounded angry or frustrated, merely resigned and exhausted. This only made Tonks angrier.

"Then what is it, Remus? Tell me!"

"If you…"

"If I what?"

"If I lost you now..." Remus suddenly stopped directly in front of her. "You're so young. So funny and brave and beautiful and just… everything I thought I could never have. And then suddenly you were there, and I wanted you so badly, but I knew I could never have you. But for some reason you wanted me too. I thought I could be strong. I thought I could let you go and watch you move on and marry someone like Bill. Someone younger, who could take care of you, and who isn't a threat to your safety."

"Remus, I don't need to be taken care of."

"Yes, you've more than proven that," he told her with another small grin that quickly disappeared. "But I wish I could. I wish I could tell you to go find someone else better than I am. But I can't now. It's not my choice anymore. I'm not strong enough to keep living without you. I'm not saying that you shouldn't walk away right now and never turn back. In fact, you should. But even while I know that would be better for both of us, I can't bear the thought of letting that happen."

Silence engulfed the room while Tonks tried to understand what this all meant. He had finally admitted that he needed her. He still wanted her to leave, but he also needed her to stay.

"Why here?" she asked him. "Why did you show me all of this?"

"I needed you to understand what being with me would mean. You need to see my life outside of the Order. You need to see what I'm capable of."

He began to take off his jacket, and she stopped herself from asking what he was doing. With his jacket off, he began to undo his tie, and then the buttons on his shirt. She watched his movement, transfixed by them. Finally he dropped his shirt on the floor and stood in front of her in the moonlight.

"Remus-" she didn't even know how to finish her statement. His entire chest, back, shoulders, and arms were covered in long white lines even paler than his skin. They formed crisscrossing patterns similar to the ones covering the walls over every visible inch of his body. A few newer, pink lines joined the white ones.

"I told you my transformations were difficult." He stated, his voice flat and indifferent. "I do this to myself. Imagine what I could do to others given the opportunity…"

She watched as he hung his head in shame at what he was, and turned away from her to find his shirt. She couldn't stand to watch him like this, broken and defeated. So she took a step forward, and he froze. He didn't move again as she crept closer behind him. When she was finally close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his body, she stopped and placed her hands on his shoulders. A shudder ran through his body when her cold hands touched his skin. She allowed her head to rest on his back while her hands gripped his shoulders tighter. Finally, she placed her lips at the top of longest line cutting across his back, and heard him release a breath. She let her lips move slowly across his back, following the line of the long-healed cut, before lifting her head and forcing him to turn and face her.

"You were right." She watched as his eyes filled with pain. He tried and failed to arrange his features into an expression of understanding. "It isn't your choice. It's mine. And I choose to be with you. Always."


End file.
